Win spoke very highly of our students and school mentioning she has traveled all over the country and never been to a school that welcomes an author, makes them feel so special, and gets students involved in the author's books as much as G.C. Elementary! Great job, Grundy Center Elementary students and staff!
Grundy Center Elementary Staff have created some dynamic and innovative literacy experiences for students during the past three years. Some of the best experiences involve connecting students with mentors, and today was one of those days! Author and Illustrator, LeUyen (Win) Pham delivered a fantastic mix of storytelling, lessons on writing and illustrating, humor, and enough inspiration for 275 elementary students! Win has helped create over 100 books in her career! She has worked with authors such as Mo Willems, Shannon Hale, Dean Hale, Kelly DiPucchio, Jerry Spinelli, Jabari Asim, Phil Bildner, Anna Marie Pace, and Julianne Moore. Kindergarten and first graders got to see a super sneak peek at Win's newest book coming out next month called, The Itchy Book, which is authored by Mo Willems. Win also gave some drawing tips and showed how real students are the inspiration for animal characters she makes in her books. Second and third grade students heard a few chapters from the next book in the popular series, Princess in Black. Win also talked about how she brought her sketch book on world travels, including a very interesting (and somewhat terrifying) trip off the beaten path in an African jungle! Fourth grade students learned about Win's world travels and the importance of sketching every single day in order to improve your craft. They also were given the privilege of learning about the book Real Friends by Shannon Hale and were shown how to create graphic novel stories with three panel starts. Win autographed and drew pictures in over 100 books for students, toured the school to see what projects each grade had created inspired by her books, and visited every single classroom for some PICTURE TIME! Experiences like these are funded through our elementary fundraising efforts each fall. If ever there were a good example of how much we appreciate our community support, this is it! A special thank you to Greenbelt Bank in Grundy Center for providing each student with a strawberry parfait at lunch to go along with Win's illustrated book series, Freckleface Strawberry. Win spoke very highly of our students and school mentioning she has traveled all over the country and never been to a school that welcomes an author, makes them feel so special, and gets students involved in the author's books as much as G.C. Elementary! Great job, Grundy Center Elementary students and staff! Thank you to everyone who sat in during the Initiating Reading Advocacy and Collaboration break out sessions during the UNI Elementary Literacy Conference. As promised, I have included the PRESENTATION LINK you may need to download to look at, and also a LINK TO OUR MOCK CALDECOTT PACKET.
I hope you all had as much fun as I did! Please let me know if I can help! ~ Brian We are SO EXCITED to have LeUyen Pham visit Grundy Center Elementary on April 27! If you would like to order a book to have personalized by LeUyen (Win), please have orders turned in by Wednesday, April 11.
Not only is his talent for writing and illustrating picture books incredible, but Mr. Kuefler is always a class act, and that's why we have had him back for the third year in a row. Mr. Kuefler again visited each group of two classrooms, but this time gave the students lessons on how to draw Digger from our celebrated book, The Digger and the Flower. After visiting the small groups, Mr. Kuefler did two larger group presentations. This year's focus was on being creative and seeking out opportunities to be creative. He also read The Digger and the Flower, talked to us about a book coming out this May which he has illustrated, and gave us a sneak peek of a book coming out in 2020. Before leaving for the day, Mr. Kuefler personally signed every book ordered by students or a bookmark. We are grateful for such a wonderful day and look forward to seeing Mr. Kuefler again! Order your copy for Mr. Kuefler to personalize during his visit on February 9! Click the file below for your order form! Orders due Friday, January 19!
After reading some New York City books, the elementary students created a 12 Pictures of Christmas wishlist of photos they would like me to take while visiting NYC. All grade level lists were compiled, and the top 12 ideas were flown to New York City! Check out the photos AND some related books! Click the books for more information and click the tweet to enlarge the photos. #GCReads! I hope you all had fun reading about our 12 Pictures of Christmas! Until next time, New York City!
The Mock Caldecott Awards are quickly becoming a loved tradition at Grundy Center Elementary! We are fortunate to have the support of the Grundy Center Community School Foundation which allows us to purchase these high quality books from 2017. Thank you! We have once again used the list of selected books by Mr. John Schumacher and Mr. Colby Sharp. Below, you will find a link to the 2018 Mock Caldecott guide. Feel free to share the Mock Caldecott love! Which book will be your pick for the 2018 Caldecott Award?
Below you will find the November Spartan Scoop!
How fortunate for the community of Grundy Center to have elementary staff members who work so hard to get students excited about reading! For more information on our reading initiatives, please visit www.gcelementary.weebly.com! Take a look at the creative characters made by staff members this year! Think In is an annual Saturday morning workshop for teachers, librarians, administrators, and children's book lovers from around Iowa. The goal is to give collaboration time for promoting literacy and learning about the newest and best children's books of the year.
Think In 2017 was held Saturday, September 31 and featured keynote speaker Mr. Colby Sharp through web conferencing. Colby is a fifth grade teacher at Parma Elementary in Parma, Michigan. He is co-founder of the Nerdy Book Club and NerdCamp Michigan, which attracts over 1,200 visitors in the summer! Colby also co-hosts two monthly popular Twitter chats, The Yarn, a podcast about bookmaking and the creative process, and most recently completed his first book, The Creativity Project. Colby's keynote discussions focused on talking about the best children's books of 2017 and exciting upcoming books for 2018. He also discussed many of the literacy initiatives that create the reading culture of Parma Elementary. New this year for Think In was the addition of web conferencing with popular children's authors. Joseph Kuefler, author of Beyond the Pond and Rulers of the Playground was joined by Jess Keating author of books such as Pink is for Blobfish and Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark became the Ocean's Most Fearless Scientist. Katy Kelly, author of books such as the Lucy Rose series and Melonhead series was also joined by Judd Winnick, author of the popular Hilo graphic novel series. Every participant won prizes and took home some children's books that were discussed throughout the day. Thank you to everyone who helped make this annual event possible! We are already looking forward to Think In 2018! |
AuthorMr. Sammons is the principal at Grundy Center Elementary. Archives
April 2018
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